06 Catherine L. Mabie

Chapter 6 CATHERINE L. MABIE

"YOU might as well try to convert cattle! You might as well try to convert cattle!" The American visitor to an interior Congo village, with its inhabitants who seemed so little removed in nature from the animals of the jungle, did not believe it, but the words attributed to Darwin came to his mind and somehow they would not go away. "You might as well try to convert cattle!" The village was on the bank of the great Congo River, four hundred miles from the mouth of that dark torrent, which flows for thirty-five hundred miles on its course from its fountain-head to the sea; and serves, with its almost innumerable tributaries, to drain the jungles of the great basin of Central Africa. Here Henry M. Stanley had paused on his journey of nine hundred and ninety-nine days across the Dark Continent, when he followed the Congo River for the greater part of its course, and drifted in dugout canoes on its swift current, except when he encountered long stretches of cataracts for which the stream is famous. The man who, on an earlier tour in Africa, had found Livingstone, and who afterwards went to the relief of Emin Pasha, had hardly been acclaimed as the first man to succeed in crossing Equatorial Africa, before certain benevolent Englishmen began to plan for the missionary occupation of the country.

Stanley reported on the appearance, customs, and general character of the people, in what is now known as the Congo. None of these natives, living far from the seacoast, had ever seen a white man. The people were amazed not only at the color of Stanley’s face, but perhaps fully as much by the fact that he was dressed, or that he was " in cloth," as they expressed it. So they did not call him the white man. They called him " Mundeli," which literally means " in cloth’ To this day, all over Congo Land, the Bantu people call the white man ’ Mundeli." Later, when the white man began to use dynamite to remove stones that obstructed the passage of steamers on the lower Congo, they gave Stanley the special name " Bula Matadi," or ’ Breaker of Rocks," which name was used, too, for the government he established, the old Congo Independent State. It has been passed on, even until now, as the title the natives use in speaking of the foreign administration of affairs in their land, now a colony of Belgium. The missionaries found an unpromising people, the dark brown negroes of the great Bantu tribe. These objects of missionary effort were low in the scale of human progress, being among the most primitive of the primitive races. They had never even dreamed of a written language, and they were scantily clothed. Many women wore heavy brass collars weighing twenty-five pounds or more. These collars were slipped over their heads when they were girls. When they became women, the burdensome decorations could be removed only by cutting the collars with files. In sections where cannibalism prevailed, men’s teeth often were filed to sharp points. Slavery was common. Polygamy was popular. A great chief might possess scores, or even hundreds, of wives, some of whom very likely would be buried alive with his dead body. The unseen world was full of evil powers, and the hope of the people was in fetishes, which they believed would ward off the evil spirits. There was a god, Nzambi, but he was far off and cared nothing for them. They believed him cruel, too, since the forces about them seemed cruel. Why should they themselves be otherwise? Was it strange, therefore, that the American visitor to the Mission station, four hundred miles up the Congo River, after seeing such creatures slipping into their small, dark, grass houses, should recall Darwin’s words? That night, on the Mission compound, which lies between two Bantu villages, he fell asleep with strange pictures floating through his brain. And with the pictures came the words that would not down, " You might as well try to convert cattle! ’ But the next moment, apparently, there was more evidence that must be considered. It was again daytime. The visitor was wakened by singing in the chapel beyond the coconut palms and banana trees. The words were strange, but the tunes were familiar: "We Have Heard the Joyful Sound, Jesus Saves;" "Jesus, Lover of My Soul;" " Nearer, My God, to Thee." And they did more than sing. The two hundred members of the church worshiping there were supporting sixteen of their own number as teachers and evangelists in the villages of the hinterland. It had been only a third of a century since Stanley passed that way the first time, and not as long since the missionaries had begun their work in Congo.

Among such a people, although at another station than the one to which reference has been made, a young American woman felt called of God to spend her life. And she had no doubt as to her divine call. When she applied for appointment to the Women’s American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, she was asked if she was willing: to go where her services appeared to be most needed. She wrote frankly in reply, " With the Master’s clear call to Africa ringing in my soul, I cannot, dare not, go elsewhere." This young woman was Dr. Catherine L. Mabie, the daughter of John S. and Catherine L. Roe Mabie, who were living at Rock Island, Illinois, when their daughter was born. Regarding the influences that were responsible for her missionary ambition, she has written, by request, as follows:

’ I have a strong conviction that hereditary forces were far more potent than environment or training, in my decision to enter missionary service. A long line of godly ancestors had devoted their own and their children’s lives to interpreting God’s love to their fellows from Great-grand-father Steadman, the genial founder of Mechanics’ Institute and Rawdon College in old Yorkshire, intimate comrade also of William Carey, to Mother, who like Hannah of old prayed for a son and that he might be a missionary."

Dr. Catherine L. Mabie, who never knew her mother, had not the slightest suspicion of her mother’s ambitions and prayers until after her appointment as a missionary, when it was revealed to her as a wonderful confirmation of a right choice of life-work. ’’A friend’s quiet question as to why I did not enter foreign missionary service, was the first force of which I was conscious in the choice of work. But back of it were older, more potent, impelling, and staying forces."

Before taking up the study of medicine at Hahneman Medical College, Chicago, where she received her degree, Miss Mabie had taught for two years in the public schools of that city, an experience which was a delight to her. It helped to prepare her for the demands that would be made on her in later years in assisting in the development of the educational mission work in Congo. Soon after the completion of her studies, she was on her way to Africa. The voyage to Africa, in the summer of 1898, was a trying experience for the rather timid young woman. The steamer ’ down the West Coast ’ was not comfortable, with the captain and many of the passengers drinking to excess every night. Then there was another and a harder experience. The young woman’s heart had been strangely drawn to the black people of Africa, but she had not been thrown into contact with the negroes in America. At Sierra Leone, the first port of call on her voyage to Africa, the native boys, in their scanty clothing, came scrambling up the sides of the steamer, from their canoes, like so many black ants.

It struck me squarely between the eyes," she wrote. "Could I ever really care enough for these people to live among them, and serve them, and be to them in my measure what Jesus was to the people among whom he lived? For days I was blind. I knew perfectly well that, unless I could so care for them, I might just as well turn around and go home, for only so could it prove worth while to plant myself among them."

Upon her arrival in Congo, she was assigned to Banza Manteke, where some years earlier there had occurred a very remarkable religious awakening among the natives, under the preaching and living of the Rev. Henry Richards. When she sat at the communion table the first time, with four other missionaries and five hundred black people, decently clothed and rejoicing in a religion which cast out the fear of evil spirits and death, she received her spiritual sight and realized that she cared enough to stay. They would soon understand that she "cared." Perhaps they would come to know that Nzambi (by which name they alluded to the Savior) cared, for she claimed to be Nzambi’s servant. In time they did come to know, and they called her " Nzambi’s Doctor," a title given to more than one medical missionary in that land of fear, sickness, and death.

Dr. Mabie found no well-appointed hospital for her use at Banza Manteke. A small wooden dispensary had been erected at that place by an earlier medical missionary, Dr. Leslie. A few feet away from that structure there was another small building with walls and roof of corrugated iron two bare rooms, by courtesy called a hospital. But she did not wait for better equipment. Year after year she made use of what she had, and gave a striking example of what a doctor can do, as physician and religious teacher, with next to nothing in the way of a hospital. She realized, however, that the work would have been done better, from the professional viewpoint, and possibly more people might have been treated, with proper equipment. Still, difficult operations were performed in " the little tin hospital."

Hundreds came there for help. Among them was an old chief, badly lacerated by a buffalo he had wounded. His girl-wife was charged by a jealous older wife with having cast an evil eye on the fetish, when she fastened it to the old man’s wrist as he left his home to hunt the buffalo. When fever set in and his mind began to wander, the witch-doctor of the village bled him " to let out the evil spirits." Meanwhile, little Nsimba, the chief’s nephew, recalled that in one of the market-places he had heard of the white woman doctor at Banza Manteke who had done wonderful things for the sick and wounded. Perhaps she could help his uncle. The chief was willing to make the experiment. So they placed him in a red blanket tied to a bamboo pole, and, with all his wives and relatives, he was taken the several days’ journey to the Mission hospital. At first it seemed as if he could not live, but in time he was well and able to return to his own village. And little Nsimba was left behind with the doctor, to attend the Mission school and to learn to dress wounds. The people came great distances for treatment, often expecting immediate relief, or to be able to take home next day sufficient medicine to insure recovery. On a busy day, before the bell announced the opening of the dispensary, the crowd gathered, men, women, and children all carrying jars, cups, tins, or bottles, seeking medicine for themselves or their friends. Occasionally one would bring a dozen receptacles, from as many sick people in his village, and be able to tell little regarding the ailment of any one of the sufferers. Often, to the native, medicine and magic are synonymous; hence the " medicine man " or witch-doctor of Central Africa. The native African attributes all physical suffering to the work of demons. Persons suffering from epilepsy and insanity are thought to be possessed of evil spirits. Was it not like this in the days of Christ? The natives have a few astonishing remedies of their own; for instance, in certain cases the flesh is cut or blistered; in other cases, red pepper is blown into the nostrils or eyes. Aching teeth are dug out. But the witch-doctor is the chief reliance in sickness; and since the native " medicine man " is supposed to deal chiefly with the spirit-world in relieving sickness, he is the nearest approach to a religious teacher, so the medical missionary finds a field peculiarly prepared for spiritual work. Into such a world of superstition and intense fear of death went the medical missionary, healing the sick and "looking death squarely in the eyes and holding him at bay."

Dr. Mabie has done her part in driving out smallpox, which was once a dreadful scourge everywhere in Congo Land. The Belgian government gladly furnishes all doctors with vaccine. Dr. Mabie has done her part in teaching the natives that the "sleeping sickness," which has carried off millions of persons in Central Africa, may be avoided if one escapes the bite of the tsetse fly, and a wide campaign of education in this matter has been conducted in the villages. She has done her part, too, in teaching the people how to combat tuberculosis; and, with a woman’s heart, she has done a great deal to relieve persistent skin disorders in little children. But her chief interest in these people is in their deliverance from their spiritual disease and bondage. "To make God near and dear to those afraid of Him " is the object of her service. Medicine and surgery are parables through which she seeks to interpret the love of Christ. What could be better than to teach such children of the hill and jungle that God is love, and that no one should be afraid of Him? From the beginning of her work, Dr. Mabie regarded the dispensary and the " little tin hospital" as experiment stations for the propagation of the Christian doctrine. Back to their villages the patients went, disseminating new thoughts, the very newest and strangest of which was that Nzambi is loving and merciful, and never far off from those who seek him. Every night these new thoughts were talked over as darkness settled over Africa, and returned patients repeated to their neighbors around the village fire the wonderful new messages that regenerate hearts and transform lives. And since personality, rather than material equipment in itself, is the needful power, Dr. Mabie gave herself, happy in the consciousness that she might be like a spring in the desert, imparting life to others. She found a bright side to her lack of equipment, since a good hospital-plant with a large body of patients would have made it impossible for her to do work in other settlements. The village work and cross-country tours, with native assistants, gave opportunity to heal the sick and to relieve hearts of the terrifying fear of the unseen.

Since there was no appropriation from the Board to cover the expense of country tours, the doctor decided that the people of every village desiring a visit should furnish transportation for her and her supplies. This they always did, cheerfully. Eight porters were required for hammock, bed, small tin trunk, chop-box [food] and medicine-chest. A tent was not needed, for usually the best grass-hut in the village was made ready for her. She always traveled overland, in a hammock suspended from a long bamboo pole resting on the shoulders of two or more strong porters. This is the only practicable mode of transportation in many sections away from the watercourse, where there are no roads except the narrow, rough paths that are at times overhung with the tall elephant-grass, twelve feet or more in height.

Sometimes swollen streams proved troublesome. Once she and the porters waited three hours on a river bank, as night was coming on, and they were far from any village. She persuaded the hammock carriers to try to cross the rushing stream by loading the hammock with boxes, which were taken over successfully. Then, with the hammock tied as closely as possible to the pole, the doctor was carried across; but even then the water came into the odd conveyance. On another occasion, it was necessary to cross a rushing torrent on a moss grown, slippery log, three feet under water. Once a buffalo in the path caused a panic among the porters leading the way. Sometimes canoes were used on the river, where mother hippos, with ugly hippo babies on their backs, came close to their visitors. Once the native paddlers took the canoe too close to a family party, when the old hippo made an alarming demonstration. The danger from maddened hippos is well known. But in many hundreds of miles of travel, by hammock and canoe, Dr. Mabie never had a serious accident, and she never received anything but considerate and courteous treatment from native carriers and paddlers.

Some days, while abroad on her missions of mercy, there was scarcely time to eat. Many sick persons were helped who never would have made the long journeys to Banza Manteke. The day schools in the villages, supported by the mission, were inspected. The native Christians were encouraged to give of their means for the support of preachers and teachers from their own ranks as missionaries to other villages. Often the response was large indeed, considering their small earnings. If they could do no better, they brought baskets of peanuts from their gardens, and the peanuts were converted into money. Of one of these demonstrations of missionary enthusiasm, at the close of a five-day conference, the doctor said:

"How I wish you might have seen the response. In many a day my heart has not been so cheered. Old and young, with shining faces, brought their gifts and cast them into the Lord’s treasury. Little children crowded around with their little baskets of peanuts; one mother with month-old twins came up with one baby in each arm, a cup of peanuts in each hand, the babies’ first gift. The audience sang one hymn after another, while many went to their houses to bring over and above what they had purposed giving. When we arose and returned thanks for the willing hearts, there were sixty-five francs in the pastor’s hands. All over the town little groups were singing for an hour or two after the service. These francs, plus the free transportation, equal to sixty more francs, were over and above the pledged contributions. Weary but happy, with my voice quite gone, I prepared for the return journey on the morrow. Opening ’ My Counsellor ’ to the day’s lesson, I read ’ Thy people shall be willing in the day of the power. Is not this His day?’"

After such an experience, Dr. Mabie found the volunteer carriers fairly flying over the ground next morning, unwilling to let her leave the hammock, even for the steep hills. On these tours she gave much attention to mothers and children. She was never happier than when talking to a group of women, or when surrounded by a crowd of dirty, half clothed, " star-eyed black kiddies," learning, for the first time, the story of Joseph the dreamer, of Daniel the brave. The value of such work is illustrated by the mental and physical growth of little Nsimba, the nephew of the old chief, who was left with the doctor to attend school and to learn to dress wounds.

Nsimba’s twin had died in infancy, and according to Congo custom, the brother must wear a little wooden image of his dead sister on a string around his neck. The image represented the twin, whose spirit was always near him. Everything of importance done for him must be done for the image also. Often, when she had vaccinated a baby, Dr. Mabie would be asked to vaccinate the image on the string about its neck. When Nsimba returned to his home for a visit, after several months at Banza Manteke, his mother was careful to ask about the image of his sister.

Yes, Mother, I wear it always," he answered. For many nights after you had left me, I held it tightly until I slept, but these nights I am forgetting fear. Listen, Mother. The white woman of God tells me that my little twin sister will not harm me; that she plays in the town of God where it is never dark and children see no fear. When I asked how she could find her way to the town of God, and she so little the white woman told me that Jesus, the son of God, carries the little ones in his arms all the way, and that perhaps God’s town isn’t really very far away. It just seems far because our eyes can’t see it."

" It is a fable of the white people, my son. Our fathers never heard of such a town. There may be one god for the white people who are not really people, but for us black folk of the grass lands? No, it cannot be, else we should have heard. Is it not the spirits of our dead who make us sick, who haunt the paths and shadow our lives always? Trust not the talk of the white woman but wear your twin fetish by day and night."

" But, Mother, the white doctor tells us that mosquitoes, not spirits, cause us to burn with fever. The medicine she gives quickly cools the hot skin. She says tsetse flies bring the terrible sleeping sickness and not angry spirits. Truly, she is very wise, wiser than we. She says that God loves us to trust in Jesus instead of in fetishes, and every night she asks him to guard and keep us safely through the night, to help us to follow Jesus every day, and give him all we have."

Many months passed. One evening the doctor was stopping in Nsimba’s home town. The old chief had set apart the cleanest house in the village for her and gave her a fowl for supper. After supper the doctor proposed that, instead of a talk from her, the boys who had come with her should tell Bible stones to the people sitting in a circle around the fire. This was a difficult task for Nsimba, in his home town, and before his chiefs. But he at length told them the wonderful story of a great chief who had made a strong fetish, before which he commanded all the people to bow. All the people bowed before the fetish except three slave boys, taken in a raid, who had no fear of evil spirits since they were people of God. When they would not bow before the fetish, the chief threw them into the fire, but no harm came to them, for their God was a real God. Then Nsimba told how, for two years, while at the Mission, he had kept his mother’s command and had always worn his twin sister’s image. But he had decided to be one of God’s people. He would wear a fetish no more. Walking over to the fire by his mother’s house, he dropped the image into the coals. It was a significant act. When he was baptized he chose a new name Daniel Nsimba.

Dr. Mabie never lost her love for teaching. She saw, too, that in a land like Congo, where the climate is peculiarly trying for white persons, it is of the utmost importance that the natives be trained for leadership. So when she was invited, in 1911, to become a member of the faculty of the Congo Evangelical Training Institution at Kimpesse, a small place about a hundred and fifty miles from the coast, the opportunity seemed in keeping with her preparation, qualifications, and convictions. There were numerous village schools of low grade, and boarding schools also, at the principal stations. But an institution was needed for the training of native teachers, preachers, and other leaders. Such a school had been established at Kimpesse, the American Baptists uniting with the English Baptists in its support, and both Boards furnishing missionary families as members of the faculty. Dr. Mabie seemed especially qualified for work among the wives of the students, as well as for general duties and medical service. For three years at Kimpesse the entire families of the native leaders are under cultivation, spiritually, mentally, physically. Classes are held for five and a half hours in the morning. Afternoons are given to industrial training, gardening, and a school for children in which teachers receive practical instruction in methods. The evenings are given to study. The women attend classes for three hours a day. Emphasis is placed on the industrial features. Dr. Mabie gives much attention to physiology, sanitation, and hygiene. She endeavors, also, to enable the families to establish, in their own villages, homes which, in the care of children, the protection of health, industry, and Christian living, will be models for other natives to copy. The mothers are given opportunity to see how the doctor cares for them, and how babies should be tended in a land where, largely on account of improper diet, infant mortality is high. Hundreds of practical things, including "first aid" and nursing, are taught these women, which they, in turn, can teach others in villages that the missionary will never visit. The families trained at Kimpesse will be the leaders in their districts.

Stated in practical terms, the school at Kimpesse attempts to confer the following benefits on the women students: To make them better wives and mothers, more companionable and helpful in their husbands’ work as teachers and evangelists; to acquaint them with the causes of simple diseases prevalent in the towns, and the care of babies and young children, among whom the death rate is appalling; to give them simple, sane, dietary rules, and better ways of home-making, gardening, and sewing; to give them a working acquaintance with the Gospel, some old Testament stories, and also other stories suited to the understanding of children; to give them simple, practical instruction in their duties and privileges as Christian members of the community and church; to instruct them in primary school teaching; and to train some of the more promising as neighborhood nurses. In September, 1918, Dr. Mabie, after a visit to her native land, sailed again for Congo, with other missionaries, braving several submarine zones on the long journey to Africa by way of Europe. When asked at that time for information for use in this volume, she modestly replied in part: " Really, there is nothing to tell. My work has been within very narrow limitations and in no wise ever spectacular. It would seem to me that the only possible way to make me twinkle, even occasionally, among your galaxy of stars, will be by using me as an illustration of what can be accomplished in missionary work in a very primitive stage of development, by a doctor with next to no equipment."

It is said that " a poor workman blames his tools," but when a woman accomplishes, in a quiet way, all that Dr. Mabie has accomplished, and finds no fault whatever with poor tools, surely we may accord her a full measure of respect and admiration.